Business Strategy for Online Poker
There are three different kinds of players at every poker game: a couple pros, a couple wild cards without a clue, and then a small handful of guys who are trying real hard but cannot seem to figure it out. Are you one of the guys who just can’t figure it out? If you’re serious about turning poker into a money-making endeavour instead of an enjoyable waste of time, here are some guidelines to get you started down the path to success in online poker.
There are three different kinds of players at every poker game: a couple pros, a couple wild cards without a clue, and then a small handful of guys who are trying real hard but cannot seem to figure it out. Are you one of the guys who just can’t figure it out? If you’re serious about turning poker into a money-making endeavour instead of an enjoyable waste of time, here are some guidelines to get you started down the path to success in online poker.
The Method
The method we will discuss is called micro limit play. This is how I approach the game. I’ve made a lot of money with this strategy, and you can too if you follow the method correctly.
Bankroll management is one of the most essential skills for a good poker player, and all strategy starts there. Take the time to read up on how to build a bankroll and how to manage it properly. This guide will not cover that aspect of the game thoroughly, but make no mistake, it is imperative to learn.
There are a few things, however, that basic bankroll management experts rarely get into when advising newbies, so I’d like to go over those a little. We will also talk about how essential investing time in poker education is to your play.
Poker as a Business
When building your bankroll, you need to start thinking of your poker playing as a business. Your bankroll is your business account, and the actions you make daily at the tables are business endeavors with long-range revenue goals in mind. Each day, your company has a certain amount of investment cash, and the point, as with any business, is to make a profit. In this case, the business operations happen to be poker. Success means the company meets its profit-generating goals and can pay dividends back to the investor. You are the investor.
Investment Funds
But how much is it necessary to invest in order to make your company successful? Well, that depends on your circumstances and goals, but if you are really new it should be somewhere between fifty to one hundred dollars. Don’t invest more than $100 until you’ve got some experience under your belt.
I know. I know. Those of you with the pockets are going to invest more from the get-go because you can afford it, and so you think you might as well start off with a bigger bankroll to give yourself an advantage. While a bigger bankroll will give you an advantage, it goes against the micro limit strategy. This is your first investment in your new business, and by using it wisely you can eliminate the need to invest more than necessary. No matter your financial situation, that just makes good business sense.
Keep Goals in Perspective
Your goal at the early stages of your business venture is to keep losses at a minimum. This still applies if you have been playing for a while but haven’t done very well; we are starting from scratch here. Limiting losses will let you get more hands in for your original investment, which is key, so the tables you will begin at are going to be very low limit–ten cent limits and below.
The short-term goal for your business is not to be the next world series of poker champion, plaster your face across television, or become filthy rich. If you’re playing with those fantasies, even subconsciously, get rid of them now.
The Initial Investment
At this point in your poker game, you need to focus on gaining experience. That’s why you need to get the most hands possible out of your investment. You may even throw this first fifty to one hundred dollars away, but if you just consider it tuition in a poker learning course, it puts it in perspective. That way, if you happen to have some newbie success and make a lot of profit, that is fantastic, but if you lose the initial investment you have gained some knowledge and have prepared to make some real money.
So, start out expecting to spend your entire investment this time, but maximize the amount of experience gained by playing very low limits. This is all part of your business launch and the plan to reach your goals. You WILL make this money back.
The Importance of a Plan
So what is the plan, anyways? Every successful business starts with a good plan. Imagine you were not the investor—you would have to have a good plan to convince someone else investing would be worthwhile. So demand the same standards from yourself as someone else would if you asked them for money.
A solid plan minimizes the risk of making bad decisions based on emotions in the heat of poker action. Poker is an emotional endeavor with a lot of ups and downs, and self-control is huge. There are plenty of opportunities to make mistakes—like playing at tables out of your league and blowing your whole bankroll or even wandering off to the blackjack tables when you should be calling it a day. So you need to establish some rules of conduct to take to every game.
Effective Plans
An effective plan does not always assume you will win. You have to take into account how you will react to every situation, such as losing half your bankroll, losing all your bankroll, or even when to leave if you are winning. For instance, if you have already blown half your bankroll, you could go to a lower limit table, you could withdraw money from your business account, or you could call it a day and go home. It is best to have this all figured out ahead of time so you don’t decide spur of the moment. Your plan must be direct and concise, and its long-term goal is to make a profit.
Starting out at the low-limit games can be frustrating, especially for someone who is financially set. Even on a good day, you walk away with twenty dollars, but that just isn’t enough to excite you or even feel like an improvement. Re-invest even such a small amount back into your business. Use it to expand your bankroll, or invest in a poker strategy book to add to your knowledgebase.
Manage Your Knowledgebase
Speaking of your knowledgebase, your education is one of the cheapest and most valuable investments you can make in your new business. You absolutely must get serious about your education. Read as much materials as you can—books, articles, magazines, etc. Learn how the best players in the world think about the game, and emulate their though processes. Learn about odds, table positions, and betting strategies.
There is a wealth of information available for free or cheap online, and your education should be a constant element of your business. Being well-read on poker theory will make you a much better, more confident poker player, and your success will increase exponentially. Be careful though. A lot of the literature will focus on bankrolls much bigger than what you have invested. Don’t get caught up in the numbers—the advice still applies to micro limit strategy. You have to work your way up to those more lucrative business transactions.
The Process
Once you have mastered micro limit play, you will move up to the low limit tables, which are typically $3/$6 and $4/$8 tables. But someday, when you have gained the proper business experience, you will be playing with the big boys, holding a bankroll that can handle the big swings at that level of the game.
There will be bad business days along the way, when a sloppy player seems to be crushing you on the kicker hand after hand because the limits are so low he goes in on every flop. But if you are patient, and wait out the learning process, you will gain a lot of great experience along the way. Keep your books as reference manuals even after you finish them. Take notes and highlight important parts. When you struggle with a situation you don’t know how to handle, try to find it in your manuals and take note of how to deal with it next time it arises.
How Fast Will You Grow?
Your plans don’t have to be so long-term that you know exactly when and how you will move up through the progression of betting levels available, but you should think ahead to at least two higher levels and consider when it is time to go there. And make sure you have defined how big your returns will have to be to justify paying dividends on the investment.
For some, they might want to see some cash flow as soon as possible, but others might set long-term goals that don’t allow a payout for a year or two. The more winnings you invest back into your business, the faster your business will grow.
Apply What You Learn
Now that you have set up a good plan and strategy, invested in education, and understand that your initial game investment will likely be money spent on experience, you need to implement what you are learning. Experience and education or great, but you need to apply it in your games in order to evolve. Don’t just nod your head when reading about the betting in early position and then still go with your gut. These are sound principles, and you need to put them to action if you want your business to be successful.
Even if a hand looks good and your instincts are saying go ahead and play it, but betting position theory says no, you need to fold. You will play thousands of similar hands, and poker is about long-term strategy, so you need to stick to your plan. Getting into the habit of varying play based on your gut is a bad idea.
You Will Evolve
You will make mistakes, and you will suffer for them. This is part of the learning process, and it feels bad when it happens, but your feelings are there to remind you next time not to repeat that mistake. You will find over time that you know a lot more about poker than you realized, and sometimes you will not even be sure where you learned certain rules and strategies, but your subconscious memory is a powerful tool.
As you implement these rules of action, they become ingrained in your play, and you become more and more of an expert on your business. Even those bad days and bad hands can be thought of as part of the learning process, and because you are still playing those micro limits they come at a budget you can afford.
Leverage Free Investment Funds
One of the best things about online play is the availability of deposit bonuses, which give you a certain amount of money for free when you put money into an account. This is great leverage for a new business venture. A lot of newbies make the mistake of thinking of this money loosely, playing it sloppy, and don’t mind losing it because it was free.
That is a tempting way to think, but it ignores the power of this money for your business. Losing that initial money is NOT breaking even. You need to play it as slow as if it were your own money. That way, if you lose it, you have properly invested free funds into experience, and if you win your business has profited while investing nothing.
Keep the End in Mind
Every tool within your reach should be used to work towards your ultimate goal of building a larger bankroll and moving up to higher limit tables where you can play in a different league and access bigger profits. Then you can look back at all those hours spent gaining the tools you needed to get there, and you will be thankful you minimized your business risks by taking it slow and putting in the hours.
Those early days were the foundation of your business success, and at that time you will see how vital they were to your new cash flow. After all those thousands of hands you have played, proper poker strategies and the plan you have adapted for making decisions will be a natural part of every move you make, and it will all have become second nature.
When you are an Expert
You will even be able to return to micro limit on days where you want to make easy cash and easily collect. That is when you will see how far you have come. That is when you will realize the value of your education and how much it was worth the investment. You will notice your emotions are not as subject to the whims of the game, that a bad beat doesn’t affect you and not improving on the flop does not leave you sulking.
You have become a businessman, and the numbers are what matter.
This is the mindset you will develop over time. Visualize it now. Imagine having achieved that. Think like someone with that mentality would think. Make it a reality.
The Importance of Mindset
The reason this mindset is so important to business success is because of the volatile nature of poker and the ease of which our emotions can defeat us. The short term perspective of the game can sometimes distort our perception and make moves based on our long-term plans seem foolish or self-defeating. You may criticize yourself at times and second-guess what you have learned.
The Value of Bankroll Management
It is these times when it is crucial to keep bankroll management in mind and closely track your business account. Keep records everyday for every game to keep you on the right track. Doing so will also build your confidence as you see your business revenues and daily profits grow. Use Excel to chart your bankroll for each week, and keep this record on file so you can go back and look it over at any time.
If you really want to be concise, keep a spreadsheet for each day you play, but try not to get too caught up in the short term numbers of a bad day. The overall picture is more important. The long-term revenue increase is what should stand out.
Your Emotions Will Stabilize
As you really begin to soak in that poker is a long-term game and understand the big picture, your emotions will not really be affected much when you have a bad game or day online. You will understand it is just a part of statistics as long as you played by the rules of your plan. Success in this business is not defined by daily operations, so when this happens, you can just go do something else and wait for the next day to make up for it. Even a bad week can be just a matter of statistics, but it all evens out.
Even Business Should be Fun
Now that you recognize poker as the business it should be, you are developing a serious mindset as you play, but you have to keep in mind that there are a lot of guys who are just out there having fun. Some of them just seek entertainment. Others don’t know any better. But even if they play like idiots and you suffer as a result, don’t get angry at them. Don’t forget–their carelessness is one of the main reasons it is so easy for a smart businessman to profit if he plays correctly.
Bad beats are in the nature of the game, and even if everyone played by the book they would happen. Try to laugh it off and enjoy yourself. After all, you are at work. Things could be a lot worse. Keep learning. Keep earning. And have a good time while you are at it.
To your business success!
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